Writable optical discs are widely used for the storage of data, such as audio, video or photographic images. Many users have a large collection of such data on multiple optical discs, and need to identify the content of each disc. This can be done by marking the non-writable side of a single sided disc with a marker pen, but this can damage the disc and may not provide a very clear or attractive label.
Another approach is to print a label of the same shape and size as the optical disc using a separate printer, and to affix the printed label to the optical disc. Printable label media may be used for this purpose, together with software for designing the label. However, the label may become detached from the disc, or may become partially detached and jam an optical disc drive.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,074,031 describes, an optical disk drive including an inkjet print head, so that the drive can print, a label on a disk as well as read or write data to or from the disc. However, this would lead to a very complex and expensive drive that would be prone to failure.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,771,297 describes a system for writing an optical disc label using a laser, possibly the same laser that is used to write data to the optical disc, and a thermally sensitive layer on the label side of the disc. A similar system is currently available on the market under the Hewlett-Packard Lightscribe™ brand. The Lightscribe™ system requires a Lightscribe-enabled optical drive, and it is not possible to write labels on Lightscribe discs with non-Lightscribe-enabled drives. Furthermore, the Lightscribe system is only able to write labels in monochrome; a colour version is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,771,297, but is not available on the market. Most importantly, the Lightscribe system requires 20 to 40 minutes to write the label, which is considerably longer than the time taken to write data to the disc.